May 10, 2009

When Words Are Many

In the beginning there were words...and they were spoken. Then some time later came writing, then the printing press and books and newspapers and then eventually advertising. So much for the continuous improvement of mankind. Throughout human history, for the most part, our writing and speech have been similar to each other.

Until recently that has been a good thing. Not any more.

Waaaay back in 2002, the BBC warned, "The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds - the same as a goldfish." Last year, Nicholas Carr of The Atlantic wrote, "What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for
concentration and contemplation... Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip
along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."

They're right and you know it. Don't believe me? Eavesdrop on a few conversations over the next week or so and you'll see what I mean. We all talk like web pages. Our sentences are short, our words lack syllables, we talk in bullet points, and when we lose interest we click to the next person. If the web is all we read, it's no surprise that we will begin to adopt it's vocabulary and speech patterns.

So what? So our conversations are shorter. What's the big deal?

Three words. Search Engine Optimization.

Keywords are the skeleton and sometimes the meat and fat of web pages which have been optimized to rank high in search engine results. More and more people and organizations are employing search engine optimization (SEO). Since most of us don't look past the first three or four results on page one, it's ever more likely that the majority of the pages we encounter have been written to rank well for certain keywords. Meaning there's lots and lots of them on the page.

So, how long before we all start to talk like optimized web pages because it's all we ever read? If it's a typical week, I will be out of milk and bread and whatever my kids want for their lunches at some point. We'll have to go to the store. Is this what the conversation will sound like? "Let's
go to Smith's Grocery Store. Smith's is the store where we do our
grocery shopping. Shopping at Smith's grocery store is what we will do.
After we finish at the grocery store, we will drive out of the Smith's
grocery store parking lot and go home with our groceries from Smiths."

Can you imagine what our historical documents would sound like if the founding fathers had lived in the digital age?

"When in the political course of human political events it becomes politically necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another
and to assume among the political powers of the earth, the separate and equal
political station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a
decent political respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the political causes which impel them to the political separation."

Or...

"We the united and just people of the United States, in order to justly and unitedly form a more perfectly united union, establish a just
justice, insure a unified and just domestic tranquility, provide for the united common defense, promote
the general welfare and justice, and secure the united blessings of justice and liberty to ourselves and our
posterity, do justly ordain and unitedly establish this Constitution for the United States
of America."

Or even...

"Now we are engaged in a national great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so nationally conceived and so nationally dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great national battlefield of that war. We have come as a nation to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final national resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live."

Thousands of years ago, King Solomon - who was very wise - said, "The more words that are spoken, the more smoke there is in the air. And who is any better off?" That's not exactly what he said, but it's a really good translation. We in the 21st century could rephrase it this way, "The more words that are used over and over again, the more likely you're reading something on the web that someone else has decided you should read. And who is any better off?"

I don't know the answer to that question and I don't have time to think about it anymore right now. I need to do some keyword research for a couple of sites I'm working on. Don't worry. I'll use my powers for good and not evil. Trust me.